SWEATIN' OVER THE SWEATER

I've been knitting for about a year and a half now.  I've done dozens of socks and dishcloths and hats.  I've whipped up a number of scarves and shawls and afghans.  I've even managed a baby sweater.  What I have not managed up to this point is an adult-sized sweater.  This is not for lack of trying.  I bought a load of off-white yarn a year ago and attempted the Shalom Cardigan, adjusted for my size.  I didn't know enough about adjusting sizes at the time and it looked like something I dug out of the dog crate and slung over my shoulders.

I unraveled that little goody and tried my hand at the February Lady Sweater (based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Alamanac February Baby Sweater, which I had successfully created).  Two problems quickly emerged.  First, I wasn't going to have enough yarn.  Second, I had apparently measured myself incorrectly and/or miscalculated the gauge because it hung off my shoulders as if it had been knit for Andre the Giant.  (There were also those pesky mistakes I made in the actual pattern, but since it was quickly frogged we won't talk about those...)

Last week I started unraveling and prepared to use the yarn on, yes, the third sweater.  This time I went smaller.  I decided to try to the Tomten Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann (found in both The Knitter's Workshop and Knitting Without Tears).  The interesting thing about the pattern in Knitting Without Tears is you use the person's measurement and your stitch gauge to come up with a base number of stitches that she refers to as X.  The rest of the pattern is a modular design and is based on fractions of X.  To be safe, I measured Foghorn and calculated a sweater for her (much smaller) size.  I love Elizabeth Zimmermann because she's funny in a dry way and has a no-nonsense approach.  She also gives very few directions for her patterns and apparently assumes I'm much smarter than I really am.  Thus her patterns always make me slightly anxious until I finish and see if I actually understood the directions correctly.

I finished today and...um...  Listen, I swear I was always an A student in math.  I don't  know what the hell is screwing me up with sweaters, but I evidently did something wrong.  Either Foghorn's measurement was wrong or my gauge was wrong or...or...something because the damn thing came out too small.  Now, ignoring the fact that it's a good size too tiny for her body (and too short), the sweater itself I think turned out pretty well.  If I could shrink my daughter by 10%, I'd probably be pleased with the results.  The jacket is very basic garter stitch throughout, so it's not meant to be fancy or particularly stylish.  (One criticism I hear of Zimmermann's patterns is they tend to be very practical and more suited to a 1950s hausfrau than a 21st century gal.)  I offered to put a contrasting color around the edges to give it more pop or add decorative pockets, but Foghorn insists she likes it just the way it is.  She also insists it fits perfectly and she's wearing it around the house as we speak.  She's wearing no pants (her habit of late is to wear only her underpants and t-shirt at home), but she's got the sweater on.  I'm making careful notes about my numbers and will adjust for next time.  And, just to be safe, I think I'll add on another 10%.


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VINTAGE BIRTHDAY KNITTING - THE FINALE

Today wraps up a birthday celebration that started in July when my mother began opening the daily gifts counting down 80 days to her 80th birthday.  She began displaying the gifts on a bookshelf in her living room and eventually they overflowed onto additional pieces of furniture.  She's now the proud owner of all manner of junk spanning eight full decades.



She now also possesses eight decades' worth of knitted items, some lovely, some practical, some...well, let's just say they were of their time.

Nothing says 1963 like a toilet paper roll cover.  To have a bare roll of tissue sitting naked would just be tacky, whereas this little baby is...ummm....  Anyway, the free knitting pattern is available here and my Ravelry notes can be found here.

I don't care what my sister says, these mittens are gorgeous.  Mrs. Brady would be proud to go skiing in them and that's good enough for me.  Plus, they just scream 1974.  The pattern actually came from an old Coats & Clark accessories booklet I found at an estate sale.  My Ravelry notes can be found here.

I didn't like much about the 1980s (curse you, teenage years!), but these place mats from a 1983 Workbasket magazine are kinda cute.  Ravelry notes here.

By 1997, I was really struggling to find patterns that didn't repeat an item already made.  (The poor woman can only use so many tacky lovely bathroom accessories, after all.)   The Tiny Cables Washcloths came to the rescue.  The free pattern can be found here and my Ravelry notes here.

These Eyelet-Edged Knitted Coasters filled the spot for 2001.  The free pattern can be found here and my Ravelry notes here.

The knitting finale was 2011's Drachenschwanz.  My mother herself sent me the link to this pattern after she stumbled across it last year.  Drachenschwanz is German for "dragon tail" and the pattern has this interesting effect that really does look like the spiky back of my fire-breathing friend.  The free pattern can be found here and my Ravelry notes here.

So, the big day has finally arrived.  Before she even has her official party on her actual birthday, my mother has received 80+ gifts (including ones from family and friends), had two birthday lunches, and endured a tree full of balloons (which have popped and shriveled constantly over the last two days).  If only the city had come through with that damn permit for the fireworks display...  Happy Birthday, Mom!

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My mother's much anticipated 80th birthday weekend finally kicks off.  My sister and I managed to sneak outside her house at 11 p.m. last night and get 80 balloons in the trees without a neighbor calling the cops.


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WILD AND WOOLY

What would I do without my
straightening iron?

I often grow my hair long and there have been times when I thought how nice it would be to have it cut and donate my tresses to a group like Locks of Love to provide hairpieces or wigs to those fighting cancer.  Then I take a good, hard look at myself in the mirror and decide that would be a cruelty to a person who already has enough struggles.  My hair is thick, frizzy, has a lot of natural curl, and I generally look like Rosanne Roseannadanna...on a bad hair day.  How could I further torture a child by making her go out in the humidity with my hair planted on her head and watch it expand like a giant wad of cotton candy?

I directed my impulses elsewhere and decided to take part in Debbie Macomber's Knit One, Bless Two project, this year benefiting Halos of Hope, a group providing chemo caps to low income folks.  This week I packed up about a dozen caps and sent them on their way.  I primarily used two patterns.

Foghorn in the Hug Cap.

 

The first was from Debbie Macomber's book A Charity Guide for Knitters.  It's an extremely simple pattern, designed for childrenn called the Hug Cap.  My Ravelry notes can be found here.

Foghorn in the Odessa cap.  Why does she
make me think of Rhoda Morgenstern?

The second pattern I found online and it turned out to be my absolute favorite.  Many a hat was knit while watching Ryan Lochte show his gorgeous chest swim his little heart out at the summer Olympics.  The pattern is the Odessa by Grumperina Designs and can be found for free on Ravelry here.  It's a simple pattern to memorize but with enough stitch changes to keep it interesting.  My own Ravelry notes are here.


While wearing a hat may not be quite as good as having actual hair, when you're comparing my locks to my knitting skills, I think the recipient is better off getting something yarn-y from me, don't ya think?


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WTF?!? WHEN KIDS AND TECHNOLOGY MIX

Both my kids have iPods.  More specifically, each has an iPod Touch, which does everything my iPhone does except make phone calls.  The Professor uses his for listening to music or watching videos on YouTube or playing games.  Foghorn does the same, plus she takes full advantage of the chat feature.

My sister and I were busy in the spring and summer buying gifts for my mother's 80-Gifts-in-80-Days birthday extravaganza.  Since we were purchasing a gift a year starting from 1932, we spent a lot of time in antique malls.  When possible, I visited them without my children in tow, not that it saved me as much grief as I might have expected.  I'd be going through a huge pile of old magazines when suddenly my phone would ding and there would be a message:  Touche Mom.  (Touche is Foghorn's favorite, all-purpose word.)  Sometimes I was stupid enough to message her back.  Other times I'd ignore her.  Either way I'd have to mute my phone to avoid the stares of other patrons as my pocket dinged every three seconds.  She would send a barrage of messages my way, everything from insults to pleas for a toy from any booth that had a stuffed animal.

I'm not the only one who falls prey to her online menacing.  I have it set up so she can chat with only select people (i.e., not 45 year old men who might try to entice her to another state).  Since my husband and The Professor steadfastly refuse to ever answer her, that leaves me, Grandma, and my sister, Uncle Chester, to bear the brunt.  Over the summer my sister would end up in very long typed conversations with Foghorn at one in the morning.  I'd be awakened from an afternoon nap by my phone dinging and a message reading "wake up I'm starving."  Grandma usually received pleas for money.

The joy of the iPod camera...
taking pictures of yourself.

I realized last week that Foghorn and I had a true 21st century mother-daughter relationship as I stood in a Target aisle arguing with her over Nintendo DS games.  On Saturday she was due to attend the birthday party of her best friend, Haley, and her twin sister, Amanda.  Foghorn chose not to actually accompany me on the gift-buying expedition, but gave me strict orders to buy them things they'd like.  Since their mother had mentioned DS games as a possibility, I headed for the game section of the store and quickly found a Monster High game for Haley.  Amanda proved more difficult, since I know less about her tastes.  I e-mailed my husband to tell Foghorn to get on the chat.

Our conversation then went like this:

Me:            Would Amanda like a Barbie ds game?

Foghorn:     what!  thats what you want?

Me:            YES!  I'm standing in Target! 
                 (Silence for several minutes, so I dispatch another message.)     Well?

Foghorn:    oh well um she probly would. oh, and while your at it get me a barbie
                ds game 2

Me:           Or Hello Kitty?  Or My Little Pony?  HER, not YOU.

Foghorn:    aww..why not ME!

Me:           Answer me!  I wanna get out of here.

Foghorn:    NO!  NOT UNTIL YOU GIVE ME SOMETHING TOO!  3:)

Me:            Fine.  I'm getting Barbie for HER.

Foghorn:    NOWAIT  she doesnt like barbie as much as...

Me:            Then what?!?

Foghorn:    hhmmmmm...first tell me whats at target

Me:            Either Hello Kitty or Pony.  Those are the options.  Monster High
                 for Haley.  (Silence for several minutes.)

Me:            ???

Foghorn:    well she likes hello kitty AND i do too...or maybe she likes...

Me:            Kitty it is.  GOODBYE.

Foghorn:    no wait  actually she likes pony

Me:           FINE.

Foghorn:    I want kitty

Me:           NO.

Foghorn:    Please (with weepy-face emoticon)

Me:           You owe me MONEY!  (She has yet to completely pay off the iPod Touch
                she uses to cyber bully me.)

Foghorn:    but - but - cant you just at least tel me what hello kitty game it is.  
                please.  (Weepy face emoticon.)

I intentionally waited until I had purchased the games and headed to my car before I took a snarly picture of myself and sent it with a message.

Me:           Too late.  In the parking lot.

Foghorn:    (Four weepy face emoticons.)  well then you OWE me it!  (Huge toothy
                smiling face emoticon.)  Nice picture (Winky face emoticon.)

Me:            Naaaaaaayyyyy!!!!!  (My favorite all purpose word, which usually
                 means "up yours.")

Foghorn:    nnaaaayyyy yourself  (Frowny face emoticon.)  your a beep! 
                ("Beep" is used frequently when she wants to call someone or
                something a cuss word.  She bleeps out the word like they used to on
                television, before they decided a half second of silence was better.)

 
While technologically advanced harassment doesn't thrill me, I'm at least happy with my daughter's grasp of newfangled communication.  Considering her school is no longer teaching cursive, but is teaching keyboarding, this is obviously her future.  Then again, if she types another comment on one of my Facebook posts that says "Touche, fartso," that girl isn't going to have a future.

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THE SUMMER BUCKET LIST...CONTINUED

With the ungodly heat and humidity finally subsiding somewhat in the month of August, The Inmates and I have been on a mad scramble to squeeze the last drops of joy out of our summer.  The last two weeks have been an exhausting push to complete as many items off our summer bucket list as possible:

*  SUNLITE POOL - Coney Island's swimming pool, originally built in 1925, has the distinction of being the world's largest flat-surfaced, recirculating pool.  Unfortunately, The Professor's favorite pastime on visits is to let his swimming noodle fill with water and then blow into one end, shooting his mother and Uncle Chester in the face. More information about Sunlite Pool can be found on Coney's site here.

*  THE MALL - I realized we were turning a frightening corner when my daughter wanted "go to the mall" put on the bucket list.  I was even more afraid when we arrived and she began giving long explanations of the clothes hanging from the racks.  ("Now, this would be perfect because orange is so in this season and the thin straps would...")  We ended up at Justice and an hour later The Vulcan was $87 poorer, but Foghorn had a kick-ass new outfit she picked out herself.  I tried to make it clear this was a splurge, that I was not taking her to the mall and plunking down $100 every time she wanted a new outfit.  If I'm feeling twitchy at this new development, you can imagine how the parsimonious Vulcan is feeling right now.

* RIDE THE DUCKS - NEWPORT - This was a big hit last year and Foghorn desperately wanted to do the amphibious vehicle tour again.  Grandma came along with us this time and enjoyed the trip, although she was wishing the tour guide would shut his mouth for two seconds so she could just look.  This was followed up by a visit to Newport on the Levee's Fun Zone.  The latter was less successful, partly due to the intense sun that was beating down on big vinyl inflatable slides and burning legs as kids descended.  For the money I was also ticked that there were only two employees, leaving parents to run the mechanical bull themselves, which I suspect their insurance company would consider an absolute no-no. More information can be found on the Ducks' website here.

*  SKY GALLEY RESTAURANT/LUNKEN AIRPORT - Before the Greater Cincinnati Airport was built in Northern Kentucky, Lunken Airport was the landing spot for the city's air travel.  (The Beatles landed here for their concert in 1964.)  The airport building has a wonderful art-deco look and now houses, among other things, the Sky Galley Restaurant.  The food is tasty but basic (club sandwiches, burgers, etc.).  The real draw is the view of the runway, where you can see small aircraft depart and land.  Down the road is the Lunken Playfield, a city park that has a long bike/jogging trail, tennis courts, golf, mini golf, and playground.  The Inmates insisted the playground had to be on the bucket list and then they did almost nothing when we got there.  The Professor sat in a swing, staring into space, and Foghorn sat in Grandma's lap, interrupting our conversations.  I'm willing to concede that they've gotten too old for the playground; they insist it's tradition and they're going to go...even if they don't enjoy themselves once they get there.

"I wanna get my picture taken
with Dad" -- Foghorn

*  CINCINNATI ZOO - One of the finest (and arguably the most eco-friendly) zoos in America.  Each visit has to include a ride on the carousel and train.  New this year was Cat Canyon, giving visitors an up-close outdoors view of some of the cats.  The Professor's favorite continues to be the Komodo Dragon.  Foghorn's favorite is the Manatee Springs exhibit, not so much for the critters as for the sound effect buttons that let you hear a manatee fart...over and over and over again...

*  KING'S ISLAND AT NIGHT - While diurnal excursions are common, we usually only make it to the park at night once a year.  (We ended up squeezing a second trip in last night, a rarity.)  The park is usually crowded, so The Professor and I are mainly interested in one thing -- The Beast.  This classic coaster is still, for my money, the best thrill in the park and is popular with coaster enthusiasts across the country.  It races through woods at speeds nearly 65 mph.  Feels fast during the day.  Feels like flying at night as you race through near complete darkness with the trees flying by.  While we stood in long lines for the thrill, Uncle Chester and Foghorn got Icees and took in the Peanuts-themed lights display.  It is my understanding that Foghorn puts on quite a dancing show (and one point swinging from a pole, heaven help me).

*  BEHIND-THE-SCENES TOUR OF THE BEAST - This was a mother-and-son event.  The tour acts as a fundraiser for the park's Kings Island for the Cure (breast cancer awareness month).  We got the story of the ride's creation, details on the engineering and construction, and a full tour of the track.  Among the surprises?  The vast majority of the track is not all that high off the ground.  With the surrounding trees you feel like you're high in the air.  In fact, in some places you're not more than a couple feet above ground.  It was a full hour-long tour with lots of photo ops and worth the $50 per person price for Beast-obsessed folks...like The Professor and me.  The guy even pointed out to me where the lake and island had been, featured prominently in the Brady Bunch episode.  (You remember, Jan and Marcia are searching the park for Mr. Brady's plans in the yellow tube and they climb into a canoe to check on the island and Jan looks down and finds it and then the Pony Express race across the park begins to the "William Tell Overture" and I am not obsessed with that show I don't care what anybody says.)  If you're interested, all my photos can be seen on Flickr here.

This is the look of someone who just got a
hole-in-one?!?  Sheesh...

*  MINIATURE GOLF - Foghorn declined this outing in favor of swimming in Grandma's pool (a very popular activity for her this summer).  The Professor and I went to The Cincinnati Golf Center near King's Island once again and I wowed him with my hole-in-one.  Well, I was wowed, anyway.  He looked at me with contempt, especially given the way I was hopping up and down with my club aloft singing "We Are the Champions," and muttered, "There's a hole in your head."  On the very next hole, he got a hole-in-one.  He turned to me and, with that condescending voice of his said, "Not so impressive now, are you?"

*  TOTTER'S OTTERVILLE - Another activity that my kids have sadly outgrown.  The Professor wanted no part of this trip, but Foghorn insisted on going.  Otterville is perfect for preschool age kids, with various indoor pretend-play areas.   You can play vet,  have a puppet show, do ballet, be a mail carrier, work at a grocery store, do arts and crafts, and take care of dolls.  Outdoors is a pond full of plastic fish, a sandbox, playground equipment, and a water area.  Foghorn did a little fishing and put on a puppet show (which was mildly obscene) before deciding she was ready to go.  She insists she wants to return, but at 9 years old she's really beyond the target age group.

*  SOAK CITY AT KING'S ISLAND - Their newly revamped water park was not a hit with The Professor.  Most of the area remained unchanged, but among the changes was a complete overhaul of the lazy river.  Instead of a peaceful float around a meandering stream, it is full of waterfalls, spraying hoses, and guns on bridges that spectators can use to blast you as you float by.  The Professor was furious and we didn't return all summer.  We managed a second trip last week and he was still ranting over the ruined lazy river.  He does, however, enjoy the new wave pool, which is large, has big waves, and allows inner tubes.  We both stayed in so long we got seasick.

*  KING'S ISLAND - Most years we visit King's Island amusement park once a week, since it's a 15 minute drive from our home.  With temperatures hovering close to 100 for the month of July, we had managed only a couple of trips before the beginning of August.  We've made up for it in the last couple weeks.  The Beast is still The Professor's ride of choice and he's old enough to wander the park alone, which leaves me to take Foghorn on her favorite - The Backlot Stunt Coaster.


The Professor paid his monthly visit to the chiropractor this past week and was asked what his favorite thing was that he had done this summer.  The Professor thought a minute and then said, "I don't know.  We didn't really do very much."  Sigh...

{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by SouleMama

"Summertime...and the livin' is easy..."

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